Feeling Uncomfortable In My Own Skin

A little back story on my weight loss journey...  My weight has fluctuated a lot my whole life, constant ups and downs, but mostly ups... I was overweight when I got pregnant with Kara, gained about 30 pounds during my pregnancy, lost 28 pounds within 6 weeks after her delivery and then put 20 pounds back on my first month back to work... at that point I realized I had to make some changes, lose weight, be active and be healthy!

Me at my heaviest - Christmas 2008

I changed my eating habits and started counting calories and the pounds starting falling off! 

On my way to being skinny! 

Over the course of the next year I lost about 70 pounds by eating healthy, counting calories and starting daily workouts, sometimes even waking up at 4:30 am to workout!!  I was doing things that I never imagined I could do.. like completing the Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred and I started running.. me?... running? who would have ever thought!?!?  I was really proud of my accomplishments!

Over the next year I maintained my weight loss and fluctuated + or - 10 pounds, but I was at about 80 pounds weight loss and feeling great!  By no means was I skinny, I was still about 20-30 pounds away from where I wanted to be but I was comfortable with my weight, confident, liked the way that clothes fit me and just overall felt good about myself. 

Fast forward to April 2011 - I was suddenly having problems breathing while I was running, having weird cravings, exhausted all the time and just generally feeling crappy.  Why this sudden change in how I was feeling?? 

That's a pretty good reason to feel like shit, right?  Being pregnant has pretty much put a halt on exercising and eating healthy.  I have severe food cravings and aversions, constant nausea and heartburn and zero energy.  Every time I  try getting back on a workout schedule I survive a day of working out and then am too sore to workout for the next week... so that's not going so well.  I've been packing on the pounds over the last few months, and quite frankly I am terrified to know how much I will gain this pregnancy!! I am really hoping that I am just gaining really fast at the beginning and it will slow down and I won't have much weight gain between now and the end of my pregnancy.

And a shot from last weekend @ 22 weeks pregnant ...bleh...

I am back to feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, which is really hard to deal with after so recently being so proud of my accomplishments and weight loss.  I guess the moral of my story is that this is just a chapter of my life, I am growing what will soon be my beautiful daughter and a little bit TON of weight gain is totally acceptable right now.  I know that I can get back to where I want to be, it will just take lots and lots of work after this little baby comes!